Journey to the Ugly Bracket

I haven't really been into basketball at all during my adult life, which is odd considering that I grew up in a hotbed of truly demented sports anguish known as North Carolina's Triangle. This is a special place where one's alliance to Duke or Carolina defines identity, where March Madness renders NC State even less important than usual (sorry, Wolfpack, don't shoot the messenger). My dad relates the following story from my first day of kindergarten:

"Dad, are we for Duke or Carolina?"
"We're for Wake Forest."
"No Dad, that doesn't count. It's Duke or Carolina."
"Well, it doesn't really matter..."
"It matters in my kindergarten!"

Because I considered Dad's alma mater unacceptable when I was five, and since Dad got his MBA at the Fuqua School, we were Duke fans. Of course, now that Wake Forest is my alma mater too, I understand just how psychologically taxing it is to be a Wake fan. As my friend Schell says, pulling for Wake is like being in an emotionally abusive relationship. Every year, the Deacs tell us it's going to be different and then they let us down again. And yet we keep coming back for more.

But back to elementary school. I may not care much for basketball now, but when I was in the fourth grade, I cared deeply. And Carolina beat Duke that year. I will remember this forever, because when I got to my classroom the morning after the game, two particularly obnoxious boys had arrived early to put a sign reading DUKE SUCKS on my desk. Rude.

My level of interest in basketball began to taper off, and football has reigned in my heart  since my senior year of high school. But during these barren months without football, I decided to participate in March Madness again. I was home sick from internship the other day, so Ben suggested that I make my first bracket ever:

"You'll need to create an account on ESPN. And make sure you pick the number-one seeds to win in the initial rounds."

"You mean I actually have to research sports statistics? That sounds like a lot of work."

I had a different strategy. Growing up a Duke fan had taught me something crucial about basketball players: ugliness correlates positively with talent and skill. Shelden Williams, Mike Dunleavy, Shane Battier, Kyle Singler... Need I go on? (Don't get too smug, now, Chapel Hill. Hansbrough is the best you've ever had, and he couldn't keep his mouth closed if his life depended on it.) Battier resembles a dinosaur and Dunleavy looks like a particularly recalcitrant zombie. Digression: when my brother Scott was in elementary school, he won a contest for reading a lot of books and actually got to play basketball with some of the Duke team. The highlight of this event for me was watching my pudgy little brother throw a ball that hit Mike Dunleavy in the head. True story.

So armed with the ugly principle, I set out to fill my bracket with the help of Google Images. Kelly Olynyk alone is the reason I have Gonzaga winning it all. He makes Joakim Noah look like George Clooney. And my bracket is doing pretty damn well considering that I know about as much about basketball this year as a fish knows about philosophy.

I also have Duke in the Final Four. Old habits die hard, and in my defense, Ryan Kelly and Mason Plumlee tell us the ugly principle is still working out in Kville.